*****
Epilogue:
This has been one of the longest days of my life–and that includes the days spent on Tatooine and Coruscant and the day of the Battle.
I woke up early, before dawn, feeling wide awake despite the fact that I hadn't actually gotten to bed until the wee hours. These diplomatic functions tend to ramble on and on (just like the politicians and diplomats themselves) and once we get back to our quarters, we still have to get Padmé our of all her clothes and makeup, which takes even longer than you would think.
Anyway–even though I was running on a few hours of sleep, I felt alert and ready to GO. Since I didn't think the escort I'd been assigned would appreciate that early a start, I ended up going for a run. It was funny, 'cause I met Yané on my way back and she was like, "No way is someone out before me, especially Rabé!" Yané is the only one of us who willingly gets up early to exercise with any regularity. I grinned at her and kept running.
It was still pretty early when I met my escort and we headed out of the city in a covered speeder. One of the volunteers in my group was a guy named Delranek Kobé, whom Yané met during the Battle. There were two other guys, both about my age–Harris Fordé and Hayden Christé–and the lieutenant in charge of our expedition was a woman in her late twenties–Carré Fishré. While we traveled, we took turns telling the others about our experiences during the battle. Not only was it interesting to hear how things went from different points of view, but it really helped take my mind off my worries.
The group had been assigned to check out a number of villages in the valleys near the one my home village is in, which meant that we stopped three times before we even reached Akaré. (It's also why I got to go out looking before all of our esteemed guests left; since they would be going out to my village anyway, why not just have me go along? Padmé had assured me she didn't mind me leaving and my fellow handmaidens said they were perfectly capable of handling things without me for a day.) Each time, we all got out and asked for the village's mayor or equivalent, and then gathered as much information as possible about the casualties, if any, the village has suffered. The first and third villages had been pretty much left alone. The second one had lost several buildings when they refused to surrender to the Federation, seven citizens had been killed and another ten had been taken to one of the camps. We got their names and then promised to find them and see they got home–assuming, of course, that they were still alive. We also took notes at each village and at different points along the way as to where the communications systems had been damaged and what repair work would be necessary. Normally, these trips wouldn't have been needed because even the most remote villages are hooked into the planetary comm system. But the Trade Federation's jamming had caused unexpected permanent damage to connections to those outlying areas, and a lot of repair work would be necessary.
In any case, as we finally approached Akaré mid-afternoon, I was feeling almost sick with anticipation. Would my village have been left alone like the first and third ones we had visited? Or would it have suffered the way the second one did?
***
TBC...